Obama Bows Yet Again

Good grief. Did he learn nothing from the last time?

Obama bows to Japanese Emperor Akihito

Remember how the White House tried to claim that Obama’s bow to King Abdullah was not  a bow?  What’s the White House going to say this time? That he was reaching down to pick up something on the floor again? It wasn’t a bow, he’s just “taller” than Emperor Akihito or some such nonsense?

Scott Johnson at Powerline had this to say about Obama’s breach of presidential protocol:

Obama’s breach of protocol is of a piece with the substance of his foreign policy. He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege and royal bloodlines.

He gives expressive form to the idea that the United States now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world. He declares that the United States is a country like any other, only worse, because we have so much for which to apologize.

John Hinderaker goes on to note this in the context of Obama’s extension of his apology tour to Japan. His speech in Tokyo “was largely an attack on his own country’s recent history and policies” and “a slap at President George W. Bush”.

Read Powerline for further analysis of the speech.

Was bowing and scraping to monarchs, reaching out to tyrants, and back stabbing allies what the left had in mind when they said that Obama would restore our standing in the world?

I don’t think it’s working.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

MORE:

See Drew M. at AoSHQ for the reaction of the press when President Clinton made a much less subservient semi-bow to the Emperor of Japan.

MORE:

It seems Obama’s “cultural sensitivity” only goes so far:

video via AoSHQ.

UPDATE:

Oh.

Apparently the bow captured on film is only one of “many”:

Upon arriving at the palace, Obama greeted the emperor and empress with a deep bow and many subsequent smaller bows.

And this video, via Hot Air, clearly shows that Obama’s bow was not reciprocated:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Obama needs a “Protocol Czar”.

UPDATE:

I saw this comment over at Ace’s and thought I’d share it for what it’s worth:

. . . what makes this bow even worse is the depth of it.

In terms of Japanese etiquette, not only is he proclaiming his lesser status to the Emperor, he’s not even proclaiming his own status as a ’state leader’.
Hint: it’s the kind of ‘bow’ a lower-level ’salary-man’ [or Senior OL (office lady)] would make.
Not even the CEO of Mitsubishi would bow that low.
If this was meant to ‘impress’ the people of Japan, it’s an ‘Godzilla-sized’ epic fail. Obama has gone beyond about 5 AU’s past ‘joke’ status with this gaff.
||||||||
And, to make matters even worse, He did this BEFORE going to the PRC. The SCM in China will have a field-day with this.

To the average Chinese: he ‘appears’ subservient to the Japanese, especially if he doesn’t render a similar bow to Hu [and yes, it will be perceived as an insult.]
To the Party Elites seeing this: he’s a uncultured fool with absolutely no sense of ‘face’.

In the ‘world’ of Asian culture, that’s a disaster on a level I can barely begin to explain to you. To put it bluntly, in the eyes of PRC’s ruling-elite, any credibility Obama had as a ’state’ leader, is gone.

Oh, don’t worry. They’ll go thru the motions and treat him as a ‘head of state’, but behind closed doors, amongst themselves they’ll regard him as little better than a land-less peasant, or worse, a self-effacing bureaucratic ‘toady’.
We are so f*cking screwed with mega-bozo at the helm.

He’s gone past Carter with this . . . with a JATO pack strapped to his a$$.

This is the mother of all gaffs.
Posted by: CPT. Charles

MORE:

American Power has another video, plus a great round up of bloggers posting on this, today.

Pun-o-the day courtesy of Mark Steyn.

“You are not the president. No one who leads so many could possibly kneel so quickly.”